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t-dog
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Having good wind impacts just about every single hog except the first one and if it’s hot and humid enough, it even affects that one. Conformation and disposition are the two things that determine a dogs wind the most. Obviously conditioning can build it too, but let’s be honest, most of us aren’t conditioning catch dogs. We go let them out of the kennel or off the chain and take them hunting. In the past I played a lot of ball with them but these last few haven’t been worth the effort or weren’t interested OR weren’t smart enough to learn the concept very well. Most of that last one was want to I think. A dog that is made right will naturally breath better than a dog that isn’t. I also believe that a lot of that is genetic. Certain families just seem to have great wind. Disposition though, it plays a role in the sense of having the ability and discipline to settle down once they have been taken off the hog. That dog that had to maybe run a hog any distance at all, then stay caught until you catch up, and then is chewing leads and tree limbs, or at the end of the lead pulling and pawing the air while screaming and barking is not going to be good for as many hogs as that dog that isn’t so excitable. The ones that relax and prepare for the next one are usually good for several in a day. I use to hunt a large property for a large company that was covered in hogs. I could only take two other buddies in there along with my son who was a little guy then. Most of the time that meant nobody. One bulldog was all I had and never caught less than a dozen in there. Few years ago we probably averaged 12-15 hogs a hunt during the cool months. Most times we had two catch dogs but not always. They had to have good wind.
There’s an old sports quote that says”fatigue makes cowards of us all”. I agree with that. It also makes us look like dummies. We’ve all seen a better team lose to a lesser team because of conditioning. When they were fresh they were dominate, but when they got tired their out put went down and their decision making got poor. It’s no different in animals. I firmly believe that dogs that push a track really fast take the air out of running hogs. The hogs either get bayed because the gas tank is empty or they made a mental mistake that put them in a bind, a decision made because of fatigue.
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